Michael Hidetoshi Mori

Michael Hidetoshi Mori is the General Director and Artistic Director of Tapestry Opera and a freelance opera director based in Toronto, Canada. Michael has won Canada’s highest award for outstanding direction in opera twice, has received accolades as a recording artist and film director, and developed and directed Nicole Lizée and Nicolas Billon’s R.U.R., a Torrent of Light which won the MCANA 2023 Best New Opera (first time for a Canadian work), and most recently became the youngest recipient of Opera Canada’s Ruby Award for his co-creation of Women in Musical Leadership with co-awardee Jaime Martino. Michael is also the past chair of the Association for Opera in Canada and a board member of Opera America.

Some opera and music theatre collaborative projects that Michael has piloted include working with the punk rock band Fucked Up on Metallurgy, The Ontario College of Art and Design to create cue-able collaboratively developed wearable tech for the robot-opera R.U.R. a torrent of light, Persian Classical musicians and a Farsi rapper for the opera Forbidden, 10+ Indigenous artists and elders for the collaborative creation of Shanawdithit, giving voice back to the last living Beothuk (the first full Indigenous genocide in North America), and creating the Opera Writers Room during the pandemic to create S.O.S. aka Sketch Opera Shorts with a team of writers, composers, singers, and pianists exchanging roles fluidly. Michael has led Tapestry Opera as Artistic Director since 2014, helping commission and premiere over 15 major Canadian works.